The Wheel
Disclaimers: See part one.
Part Four
Night came softly, if night could ever come to a place like this. Angel smiled as he walked beside Buffy. The moment was serene, and they were together. If there was something wrong with this situation, Angel gave it no thought. Where they had come from or where they were going didn't matter.
Buffy was watching him oddly. "Angel?"
"Hmm?"
Her face showed a multitude of emotions he could only begin to guess at. "Do you remember one of the times…I left you? After the whole affair with Spike, I said 'What I want from you I can never have.'"
"Yes," Angel said, his smile altering only for a moment. "Why bring it up now? It doesn't matter anymore. We're together now."
"It does matter!" Buffy said in surprise. "What I want, what you want…it always matters. That's part of the problem between us. We always wanted impossible things. The sunlight, the children? We wanted everything…and ended up with nothing."
"We have everything," Angel protested, and smiled, dismissing her comments.
"Angel," Buffy said urgently, "you know that isn't true. *This* isn't real."
Angel looked at her blankly. It felt real. They were together. It had to be real.
"I wish this could go on forever," Buffy whispered sadly, "but it's already gone on too long. This isn't real. You have to go back."
Her words made no sense. They should have, but they didn't. "Back?"
"Yes, Angel, back," Buffy said patiently. "Remember? They need you. If you don't go back now, you'll be lost to them forever. You'll be lost to me forever, too."
An inexplicable sadness seemed to seep into Angel's mind. "I don't want to go back," he whispered harshly.
"I know," Buffy said, taking hold of both his hands. "You have to though, remember? We belong to the world, not to each other. You said that once. The world needs you now."
The words, the familiar words, broke through the fog Angel had willed himself into. "But you're not there," he whispered. "I'm so lonely."
Buffy pulled him into a strong hug. "I'd return with you if I could," she whispered in his ear.
"You would?"
"Yes. I wish, just once, that I could stop the world from ending with you once again." She pulled back and Angel could see their surroundings once again. The faint forms of gravestones seemed to rise from the mist. "It's your responsibility now. There is no changing my reality, but don't let *this* become everyone else's."
She led him by the hand then into the cemetery, becoming more real by the moment. Angel knew where it was now. He and Buffy had patrolled there together often enough. Of the cemeteries in Sunnydale, it was one of the newest. Buffy led him in silence to the newest part of the cemetery. There were more new graves there than there should have been. Flowers left by families were on over half the graves here, and Angel's shoes disturbed the freshly dug soil. Not Buffy's, though she left no footprints.
"This is reality," Buffy explained after a moment.
"No…" Not this busy cemetery, not this gravestone….
Buffy stopped him, the marker between them. :Yes. *This* is reality. You have to go back now."
Angel looked at the gravestone, at the name he'd always known he'd see there someday. The name he'd dreaded seeing. Now it was real. He could feel the cold stone, the texture of her name carved in the granite. "Will we ever be together again?" he asked Buffy in a whisper.
"Maybe," Buffy replied, seeing the element of the dream within the harsh reality of the cemetery. "I hope so. But not today." She leaned forward to catch his lips in one last tender kiss….
And then she was gone, and Angel was alone. Alone in a darkness that echoed from deep within himself. Alone with her grave standing in silent tribute to the woman who had captured his heart and soul. For the first time since he'd seen her years before, he was truly alone.
Angel sank to his knees in the fresh dirt. Together in body and soul, Angel cried in mourning.
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